I am coming a little late to the ‘Primary Teaching Bloggers Blog Hop’ as I was holidaying in an internet free zone.

Some Irish primary teachers who blog have come together to support one another. Emer the teacher whose blog is called ‘A Crucial Week’ has devised this Blog Hop for Irish teachers who blog. If you follow this link to Emer’s blog, you will find links to all the Irish bloggers taking part in the ‘Blog Hop’. I found a couple of great ones I was unfamiliar with. In turn the recommendations they made to blogs they have found useful greatly added to my list of useful blogs. If you are an Irish teacher who blogs, why not follow the links and add your blog to the list.

As part of the ‘Blog Hop’ there are some questions to answer as follows:

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your teaching experience: I’m Mary aka Merry Beau. I have been teaching in Wicklow for over thirty years. In that time I have taught the full range of classes and enjoyed them all. I am working in Learning Support at the moment and love how well you can get to know a student in these smaller working groups.

What class level are your ideas aimed at? I think most ideas here can be adapted for use for any group from First to Sixth. When I started blogging I used try to write clever titles for my posts, but now in fairness to busy teachers I always try to give a clear indication in the title of a post, what age group the contents is suitable for.

What made you want to start blogging? I started this blog in 2011. My students loved the activities we did on the Interactive Whiteboard and would often ask me for the links so they could try them at home. Rather than send these home on paper where they were mislaid, it was so much easier to put up the links online. I had also accumulated a lot of slideshows of art work the students had done but no platform on which to put them so as to share them with parents.

Would you advise other Irish teachers to start a blog? Yes definitely. I love to get ideas for class from reading other teachers’ blogs. One’s own blog stores ideas from year to year and helps with planning. Writing up an activity afterwards helps one to reflect. Seeing exemplars of work that was done other years is motivating for the students and gives them a starting point. So too is knowing that their work is being done for a ‘real audience’. Students learn internet safety as they go along and learn digital citizenship. Parents appreciate seeing the work that is done in school and the additional communication a blog creates. There is a helpful, generous and welcoming international community of teachers who blog. I enjoy this feeling of a global staffroom.

However starting out, blogging can feel like a rather solitary existence. Click here to read about how new Irish teacher blogs can start to connect effectively with an audience.

We are in recession here in Ireland and a significant number of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) are waiting by the telephone each morning, awaiting a call to substitute for a teacher who is unwell. Sub Stories chronicles an enthusiasm for teaching, occasional feelings of rejection, and also generously shares links to resources that are useful for teachers who are subbing. She also has a lively complementary Facebook page in tandem with her blog.

This lively and entertaining blog was born on 13th February 2013. It was quickly on its feet and going from strength to strength, using sound and vision showcasing the excellent work that is going on in this school. I particularly like its use of podcasts that give the students a voice. The way in which this blog reaches out to parents, other schools and the local and wider community is also commendable.

This blog has many positive attributes of which I will list just three:

1. The teacher Myles Webb and his students communicate and collaborate globally and encourage those new to blogging to do so too.

2. The students’ involvement in all aspects of the making of this blog is apparent and they visit, comment and engage with other class blogs. This often takes the form of inquiries about the culture and traditions in other lands.

3. This blog also teaches about New Zealand’s wonderful culture in an engaging and interactive way.

Best Student Blog:

The uniquely named!ROAR!is written by Mackenzie. It is well written and well illustrated and refects her interests and personality. Mackenzie shares my love of widgets as tools that entertain one’s visitors. Mackenzie also understands the importance of interacting with the visitors to one’s blog and always replies to comments 🙂

What can I say! In every classroom I visit I see the resources from this blog; resources of excellent quality and wonderful variety. Seomra Ranga makes a significant contribution to the development of educational resources and the concept of sharing them.

This is a blog I recently discovered; an Aladdin’s Cave for the Primary Teacher. Comprehensive, colourful and creative, this blogger, shares a wealth of teaching ideas, resources and methodologies. There are imaginative ideas for teacher planning and classroom set up. Motivating and inspiring, there is great attention given to helping children listen, think and learn.

Ok so in theory we do understand that substitute teachers do an important job that requires them to be available, flexible, inventive and patient and that it is not the first choice for a teacher who would love to have their ‘own’ students. This poignant post hits home, giving the reader a better understanding and hopefully empathy for substitute teachers who are searching for a more permanent position. This post is rendered all the more powerful as it contrasts with her posts about her love of and enthusiasm for teaching.

The online teaching community on Twitter reflect their calling and are professional, encouraging and affirming. They are generous with their praise and their time. They share their expertise and experience, their links and resources. Chief among these educators on Twitter is Myles Webb @NZWaikato. He does all this and his commitment in terms of time must be significant. For example in the earlier part of this year, he visited very many of the student and class blogs using the #comments4kids hashtag, leaving encouraging and affirming comments.

The value of commenting on student blogs cannot be underestimated and their effect on student self esteem and motivation is hugely significant. Global connections like these is what makes the world go round. Which brings me neatly to:

Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast. The Literacy Shedis an answer to a teacher’s prayer. The quality and breadth of the videos that Rob Smith has compiled enriches and inspires our teaching and in turn our students’ learning and development.

Best Educational Use of a Social Network; How I LearnOnce upon a time there was a newly qualified teacher, who was subbing. She wrote about her adventures on her blog and Twitter. She wrote a post about ‘How I Learn’ and invited guest bloggers through her blog and on Twitter to do the same. In this way she used Twitter (a social network) to compile a fascinating account of the variety of ways in which people learn.

The key I feel to her success is the interesting selection of contributors she had including Mary and her son Daniel, an exceptional young man with Down’s Syndrome who is a visual learner and Fintan, a History and English Teacher who is an avid reader.

Through sponsorship and crowd sourcing on Twitter, the intrepid compiler Helen Bullock then secured the finance she needed to publish a book of these accounts (with proceeds going to Barnardo’s Children’s Charity)

and they all lived happily ever after.

Lifetime achievement;Sue Wyatt. TheStudent Blogging Challengehas been run over a number of years biannually. It is co-ordinated by Sue Wyatt, a very busy and dedicated former teacher from Hobart, Tasmania. It gives the opportunity to individual students and classes who blog, to learn new blogging skills and to develop their blog in a systematic way. Through the well designed weekly challenges they make contact with students and schools all over the globe. Sue also coaches small groups of students with spectacular results (see Let’s Blog! Communicating with the World.) My nomination for Best Student Blog is one of Sue’s students. And so I ‘rest my case’ 😉

Student Blogging Challenge

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